Feds raise concerns that releasing Biden audio would spark a deepfake frenzy
The Justice Department says releasing the Biden-Hur audio recordings is too risky.
The feds say they're concerned that the recordings could spark a surge in Biden deepfakes.
Republicans and conservative groups have demanded access to the audio; a transcript is already available.
The Justice Department really doesn't want President Joe Biden to become the subject of another audio deepfake.
Republicans and conservative groups have waged a legal battle to get their hands on the audio recordings of Biden's interview with the special counsel Robert Hur, who oversaw the department's investigation into the president's handling of classified documents and ultimately decided not to pursue charges, citing Biden's age and what he described as the president's poor memory.
The department clapped back against the groups in a legal filing late last week, saying that releasing the audio could ignite an artificial-intelligence-powered deepfake frenzy.
"The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence, and 'deep fake' technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files," the Justice Department wrote in its filing. "If the audio recording is released here, it is easy to foresee that it could be improperly altered, and that the altered file could be passed off as an authentic recording and widely distributed."
Among the department's worries, it said: "A malicious actor could slow down the speed of the recording or insert words that President Biden did not say or delete words that he did say."
Even though there are already recordings of Biden's voice that could be used to create deepfakes, any faked audio may be easier to pass off as the real thing if news spreads that the Biden audio was released, prosecutors argued in the filing.
While a full transcript of the Biden-Hur interview was released in March, Republicans have been demanding that the Justice Department release the audio recordings. The conservative organizations Judicial Watch and Heritage Foundation joined in, suing the department in an attempt to get their hands on the audio.
Nearly a dozen news outlets, including Business Insider, have also sued to get the audio released, Politico reported.
The department has said that Republicans want the tapes to serve their political agenda and that they're escalating the conflict "for conflict's sake." A politics and national security expert previously told BI that Republicans could, for example, use the tapes as "raw material for campaign ads."
Biden is no stranger to deepfakes of his voice. In January, a phone-call scheme used an AI-generated version of his voice to tell Democratic voters in New Hampshire not to vote in the state's primary election.
Lawyers for the lawsuit's plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the Justice Department.
Read the original article on Business Insider
